ESCWA WEEKLY NEWS No. 33

22 July 2019




	ESCWA at the High-Level Political Forum in New York A delegation from ESCWA took part in the High Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development (HLPF) held on 9-18 July in New York, urging stronger commitment to 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. The 2019 HLPF was held under the auspices of the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) with the theme “Empowering people and ensuring inclusiveness and equality” and welcomed hundreds of participants from 47 countries. Among them, 6 Arab States presented their Voluntary National Reviews (VNRs): Algeria, Iraq, Kuwait, Mauritania, Oman and Tunisia. The Iraqi delegation, in its capacity as Chairman of the Arab Forum for Sustainable Development (AFSD) 2019, presented the final report of the Arab region. ESCWA team participated in several sessions and side events, and the Executive Secretary, Ms. Rola Dashti, made sure to urge all stakeholders to maintain what she dubbed as C-PED: Commitment, Perseverance, Engagement and Determination, to achieve Agenda 2030. Read more

	ESCWA Chief holds bilateral meetings in New York On the sidelines of her participation on top of a delegation in the High-Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development (HLPF), ESCWA Executive Secretary, Rola Dashti, discussed in New York issues of interest to the Arab region with a number of State representatives to the UN. Dashti met with senior officials from Palestine, Bahrain, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, UAE, and discussed the role of ESCWA in supporting its member States. She also briefed the Arab Group on work priority areas of the Commission within the context of a reformed organization in line with aspirations and expectations of member States. ESCWA Chief also discussed with the Director General of the International Renewable Energy Agency Francesco La Camera ways of scaling up mutual cooperation to strengthen the regional dimension of sustainable energy management. She also met with the Permanent Representative of Sweden to the UN, Ambassador Olof Skoog, co-facilitator of the HLPF Political Declaration. Read more


	Training on GIS for the Integrated Transport System in the Arab States ESCWA organized at the UN House in Beirut a training workshop on Integrated Transport System in the Arab States (ITSAS)-GIS in collaboration with UNECE on 9-11 July 2019 and with the support of the Islamic Development Bank (IDB). Prior to the workshop, a tripartite coordination meeting was held to finalize and adopt the unified template for the GIS project considering its future possible connectivity to similar initiatives for Asian and European Transport Networks. The workshop was attended by 27 participants from 14 Arab member States who were initiated to the GIS web platform and trained on attributes entry for the features of ITSAS. They also learnt how to create GIS geometric features for the layers under consideration for the future. The workshop was an example of interagency cooperation to create an operational GIS tool which would help later in the analysis of the performance of multimodal transport network in the Arab region and their interlinkages with the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals. Read more




	Capacity development material on open data The report offers practical guidelines on how to initiate and manage open government data programmes, and it is targeting public sector employees in the Arab countries. This guideline explains open data and its relationship to better governance and the SDGs. It offers a phased approach to plan, implement and manage open data initiatives, as well as steps on data cataloguing, data quality, and evaluating initiatives. Tools and platforms are described, while case studies provide a look at initiatives in some developed and developing countries. The report also highlights the role of governments in collecting large amounts of data that can be used in various ways to improve social and economic life of people. Read more


	Cultivating a holistic response to domestic violence in the Arab region This study documents and analyses domestic violence protection order legislation in the Arab region through the lens of international frameworks and good practice with the aim of having Arab States streamline their legislation in line with these standards. It discusses the historic State response to violence against women worldwide, including both the prohibitive and enabling factors of the response. It then reviews the normative frameworks that call for civil protection orders as part of a coordinated legal response to violence against women, as well as the jurisprudence resulting from such frameworks. The study analyses the national legal frameworks and policy frameworks that guide Arab States’ responses to violence against women. Lastly, a series of recommendations directed at member States’ engagement at the international, regional and national/community levels is provided. Read more


	Did you know... … that, to achieve sustainable development and growth, we must change how goods and resources are consumed? Over 152 countries ratified the Stockholm Convention, a global treaty to protect human health and the environment from persistent organic pollutants, which entered into force in May 2004. Governments who have signed agreed to take measures to eliminate or reduce the release of pollutants into the environment. The implementation rate of the Stockholm Convention in Arab countries has not exceeded 67% and in 12 Arab countries, it ranges from just 17% to 33%. Key indicators with little or no progress in the region include exposure to air pollution, per capita CO2 emissions, level of water stress and per capita municipal waste. Read more